Music Video of the Day: Bop ‘Til You Drop by Rick Springfield (1984, directed by David Fincher)

When you think of which 1980s pop singer was most likely to fuse his music with a science fiction epic about a group of intergalactic prisoners being enslaved by some sort of smirking lizard king, Rick Springfield is probably not the name that immediately comes to mind. But that’s just what happens with the music video for his song, Bop ‘Til You Drop.

Not surprisingly, this video was directed by David Fincher. Before Fincher moved into feature films, he specialized in music videos that took artists to new and unexpected places. According to both the Internet Movie Database and the Internet Music Video Database, this was Fincher’s first music video. A year earlier, he had worked as an assistant cameraman on Return of the Jedi and both the slaves and the aliens in this video feel like they would not have been out of place as a part of Jabba the Hutt’s entourage. Visually, the video also has much in common with Fincher’s feature directorial debut, Alien 3.

This song was recorded for the soundtrack of Hard To Hold, an apparently unsuccessful attempt to turn Rick Springfield into a film star. I haven’t seen Hard to Hold but Wikipedia offers up the following plot description:

James “Jamie” Roberts (played by singer-songwriter Rick Springfield), being a pop idol, is used to having his way with women. He meets child psychologist Diana Lawson (Janet Eilber) in a car accident, however, who not only doesn’t swoon at his attention but has also never heard of him. He tries to win her affection but complicating things is that his ex-lover, Nicky Nides (Patti Hansen), remains a member of his band.